When I was twenty years old, I went to visit Jean-Pierre Gorin (Jean-Luc Godard's erstwhile collaborator) at his home in San Diego. I had called him up out of the blue, told him I was a big fan of his work, and asked if I could come visit him. He graciously agreed to meet me.
I arrived full of excitement and delusion. I was somehow imagining that we would bond and become great friends and, who knows, maybe even work together some day.
We started talking about cinema, and I asked him about his favorite films. One of the first films he mentioned was: "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." I was stunned. I had seen the film, but hadn't been particularly impressed by it. He told me it was Godard's favorite American film of the past ten years as well (this was in the early eighties).
We started to argue about the film, and he ended up getting angry and throwing me out of his apartment. So much for collaboration. But I never forgot what he said about "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore."
Today, I showed the film in a class I was teaching on Scorcese. I hadn't seen it in the intervening years, but I finally understood what Jean-Pierre Gorin and Jean-Luc Godard had been talking about. It's an incredible film (I would even argue that it's Scorcese best). It was wonderful to watch it again and to try to see it through their eyes. It was actually heartwarming, and reminded me (despite appearances to the contrary) of Godard's deep love of classical cinema, and of the reality from which that cinema springs.
posted by Caveh Zahedi at
11:50 PM
